Anthony Gorman and Didier Monciaud, eds., The Press in the Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950: Politics, Social History and Culture (New Texts Out Now)

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Sep 4, 2018 Region
Anthony Gorman and Didier Monciaud, eds., The Press in the Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950: Politics, Social History and Culture (New Texts Out Now)

Anthony Gorman and Didier Monciaud, eds., The Press in the Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950: Politics, Social History and Culture (New Texts Out Now)

By : Anthony Gorman

Anthony Gorman and Didier Monciaud, eds., The Press in the Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950: Politics, Social History and Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017). 

Jadaliyya (J): What made you edit this volume?

Anthony Gorman (AG): The book came out of an original idea that Didier Monciaud and I had for a workshop at the Mediterranean Conference of the European University Institute held at Montecatini some years ago. This brought together a diverse group of scholars who were working on different aspects of the history of the Middle Eastern press and provided a forum for a productive and reflective series of discussions on this important medium, both as a reflection and an agent of historical change.

We focused on the period 1850-1950 because this covers the critical time when the press began to emerge as an influential forum and became a critical space for the dissemination and debate surrounding many political, social, and cultural issues. Not merely reporting on matters, the press collectively would come to play an important role as an agent in both public (and political) debates, including the important contest between nationalists and the forces of imperialism.

In putting together the contributions for the volume, we were keen to include the work of scholars writing in French since we thought that Francophone scholarship is not always given due recognition in English language work. For this reason, four of the chapters in the volume (El Houssi, Ezzerelli, Monciaud, and Temimi) were translated from the original French versions. We must also record our thanks to Nicola Ramsey at Edinburgh University Press for agreeing to support the project.
One of its central concerns is the notion of the press as a vehicle for the construction of a public voice that sought to represent particular visions of the nation, community, or dissident elements.

J:  What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

AG: The volume comprises twelve detailed case studies examining different aspects of the history of the press in the Middle East before 1950. One of its central concerns is the notion of the press as a vehicle for the construction of a public voice that sought to represent particular visions of the nation, community, or dissident elements. Beginning with the Young Ottomans, who effectively used the press to criticize the Tanzimat regime, these studies explore the way in which these voices reflect different political perspectives, social orientation, and cultural values. In addition to the political debates of the late Ottoman period, they include Palestinian voices during the mandate, anarchist and labor activism in Egypt, and, during the interwar years, the contest between left and right in Tunisia and specific press titles of the Jewish community in Iraq and the Orthodox community in Lebanon.

In dealing with these themes, these studies highlight the role of those involved in the production and consumption of the newspaper. Foremost among these are journalists, who in the early period were most often political activists, intellectuals, or bureaucrats, but over time developed a more professional (and distinct) status as the field of journalism matured. Editors, editorial teams, caricaturists—not to mention readers—were also significant players in the lively and dynamic press of the period.

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

AG: I have always had a fascination with the press as a primary source and have relied on it considerably in much of my research. However, by taking the press itself as the central theme, the volume offered the opportunity to contemplate its multi-dimensional character in a more profound way. My own chapter on the anarchist press in Egypt is part of an ongoing larger study on the anarchist movement in Egypt before the First World War (a subject on which I continue to work), but editing this work and reading the final versions of the other contributors has greatly enriched my understanding of the press.  

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

AG: Ideally the volume will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate research students and academics concerned with the modern Middle East, its politics, society, and culture, but especially to those concerned with the press, whether as a cultural artifact, political forum, or social expression. I also hope that it will engage the interest of other historians of the press since the case studies here explore many themes common to the press as an international phenomenon, such as its relationship with the European form and the common concerns and difficulties of the press in occupied and colonized societies.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

AG: I am continuing to work on different aspects of Middle Eastern society, exploring both the interactions and barriers operating between different ethnic, national, and religious communities. Following a workshop organized at the University of Edinburgh in 2015 and supported by the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW), I am currently co-editing (with Sarah Irving) a volume comprising a series of studies examining the diverse sources of cultural thought and practice in the Arab world in the period before 1950. This will ready for publication at the end of this year. I will then return to two topics which I have been working on intermittently for some time. The first is a monograph on a history of the Middle Eastern prison during the colonial period, a subject that is surprisingly neglected in the literature despite its lamentable prominence in the political life of many Middle Eastern states post-independence. The other subject is a more extended exploration of the transnational and multiethnic anarchist movement focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean before the First World War.

J: What particular aspects of the Middle Eastern press do you think require further research?

AG: Despite an already considerable literature, there is still a great deal of work that could be done to expand our knowledge of the history of the Middle Eastern press. In addition to engaging with the political, social, and cultural questions of the day, much remains unclear on aspects of newspaper management, working conditions, production techniques, readership, advertising, and other financial aspects of newspaper and periodical publication. There are of course some simple but significant difficulties of determining the survival of many lesser known titles but, where material is available, by exploring the diversity of the Middle Eastern press in terms of genre, language, distribution and readership, we can gain a more nuanced and comprehensive picture of the importance of the press as an instrument of public communication, political agent, social medium, and cultural phenomenon.

 

Excerpt from Book:

[pp. 1-3, 10-13]

The press occupies a crucial place in the modern history of the Middle East and North Africa. Its interest and significance lies in its importance not only as a medium of representation that a society produces of itself but also of what a society produces for itself. An understanding of its historical development is therefore vital to an appreciation of many processes of political, social and cultural change and of the evolution of public opinion and the debates surrounding social and cultural identities in the Middle East. The Middle East and North Africa region offers a rich range of materials for a study of the press. In the hundred years from 1850 to 1950 it emerged as a medium of expression and chronicler of political developments punctuated by a record of dynamic contact and conflict within local societies and with European imperialism, initially in the latter nineteenth century and subsequently with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the decolonisation process that immediately followed World War II. During this time intensive, energetic debates were conducted and political struggles waged over the nature of political community, definitions of social classes and the character of cultural identity. The period sees the rise of nationalist movements where the press played a central role in supporting the nationalist cause but also a more complex part in articulating different perspectives on political, cultural and social questions. Essential to an understanding of political history and its representation, the press was also a participant in and subject to political circumstances, at times benefiting from the opportunities offered by free public debate while in other situations being subject to repressive legal regimes. Ultimately, the period ends with formal independence granted across much of the region when a rich tradition of political and cultural contest framed by a context of colonial domination and anticolonial struggle moves to a phase where newly installed national regimes sought to mediate and impose their own agenda on the role of the press. It therefore offers a rich opportunity to explore the press as a forum and an agent in a period of dynamic transformation.

The number of newspaper titles produced in the region over the period 1850–1950, while almost impossible to quantify precisely, is staggering in its profusion and diversity. From the late nineteenth century on, there was an explosion in publishing that took many different forms, of daily newspapers, weekly magazines, illustrated periodicals, high-brow journals and popular rags, of numerous fleeting and fewer long-established titles, variously scientific, literary or satirical in tone, from local papers to reviews, from community organs to political tribunes, from educational journals and professional beacons catering to specialised interests in politics, culture and economics, published in at least a dozen different local and foreign languages in single and sometimes multilingual editions. The context of the first age of globalisation in the nineteenth century integrating the region into the world economy and the rise of the colonial project created opportunities for these very different press endeavours.

This emergent print culture affected the transmission of ideas and knowledge despite modest levels of literacy across the region while the mass of published periodical material spoke of a series of connected societies that were redolent with a strong desire to express themselves, to give voice to their individual elements and constituents, and to consume news, commentary and various literary forms. This creative polyphony of social voices and kaleidoscope of published textures, of original material, of translations, reproductions, adaptations, of text, caricatures, illustrations and photographs provides a fascinating and multifaceted subject of study.

This volume emerged from a workshop held at the Ninth Mediterranean Research Meeting at the European University Institute in Florence in March 2008 which brought together a diverse range of scholars working on different aspects of the Middle Eastern press. The papers presented there, and subsequently developed and included here, share a common concern with the complex social, political and cultural aspects of the press in the period before 1950 and an engagement with its dynamic and multidimensional character. Based on a detailed reading of press material and drawing on archival research, they cover a significant geopolitical range with cases studies across the region, from the heartland of the Ottoman Empire to the post-Ottoman Arab world of Egypt, Palestine, Iraq and North Africa. Chronologically, they straddle the financial crises of the Ottoman Empire in the 1870s and the long confrontation with European colonialism, from the period of colonial expansion before World War I to the interwar period under the veneer of the mandatory administrations in Palestine and Iraq.

[…]

Scholarly research has developed and integrated the history of the press into a political and cultural history around three axes: the press as a vector of history, as an agent of history and as a source that allows an understanding of the transformation of societies. The circulation of regular published texts became a vital element in the constitution of a public sphere in Middle Eastern societies from the late nineteenth century through the gathering of ‘public’ communities in time as well as in space through the interaction with readers and the experiences of open debates. While the Habermasian conception of the ‘public sphere of society’ proposed the emergence of a hegemonic bourgeois public, and Benedict Anderson put forward the phenomenon of common text consumption supported by print capitalism as the foundation of what he called ‘imagined’ national communities, more recent conceptions of the public sphere have moved away from the construction of a hegemonic mainstream to a more complex model of overlapping, intersecting and competing publics.

The press was a crucial site for the proposal and dissemination of these new agendas. Processes of dialogue and discourse entailed ideas which eventually culminated in political platforms, ideologies and national or subaltern awareness. New identities took shape in the heat of a time of huge change with the protest against colonial powers and the development of nation states. Competing counter-publics or subaltern perspectives sought to challenge or complement mainstream conceptions of the public. The emergence of a women’s press serves as a prime example. The first publications dedicated to women’s issues appeared during the Tanzimat period but a women’s press first appeared in Egypt in the 1890s, which promoted new images of women in society, from conservative to liberal voices, discussing a broad range of issues such as gender roles, feminism and political rights. By the early twentieth century female activists such as Malak Hifni Nasif in Egypt could participate much more easily in debates mediated by print than ever before. Other subaltern voices would establish their own press: labour and political movements, and religious and community associations. The periodicity of newspapers created a special kind of relationship between readers and a particular publication. Unlike other printed forms, the newspaper is both fixed and changing. Its features, such as its title, format of text and serialisation of material, have served both to distinguish and to establish a continuity between its separate issues. The relationship thus established between and among senders and receivers of ideas and information, as well as the mechanisms of reception and the perception of media forms, is an important dimension to this dynamic. In this equation the public was neither homogenous nor passive.

The press in the Middle East therefore offers a great diversity of research themes, some already well established in studies of political history but others relatively new, such as the phenomenon of the local, community and oppositional press, the construction and contest between social norms and cultural trends and the character of journalism. The contributions in this volume speak to a number of these overarching concerns and themes that recognise that the press, far from being restricted to the narrowly defined political field, extends to a wide spectrum of representation that engaged with issues of cultural values, community identity, gender roles and social status and has served as a forum for the exchange, contest and consolidation of ideas. Fundamental to an understanding of political history and its representation, the press has played a seminal role in the construction and transformation of culture. As a regular source of public information it allowed new urban populations to find their way in metropolitan spaces, to participate in social life and to equip themselves with a memory of events. From the end of the nineteenth century, the logic of an emerging industrial culture increasingly provided tools that established or consolidated cultural practices and collective imaginations in Middle Eastern societies. Such a critical role calls for an examination of how the press constituted a relatively autonomous sphere and favoured the emergence of norms and representation of ‘society’, and yet also provided a forum for those norms.

In this process, the press was not only a vehicle for the representations emerging from these debates but also an actor in expressing national interests and aspirations (Karagöz-Kızılca, Booth, Kabha, Lawson), community voices (Bashkin, Slim) and non-elite networks (Gorman, Monciaud). Despite or because of the broad social and cultural spectrum within which it operated, the relationship of the press with state authority remains a critical theme. State strategies of surveillance, censorship, suppression and other forms of harassment were regularly adopted to deal with unwelcome criticism. As the studies here show, the state adopted a variety of postures towards the press, from its use as a tool to justify government policy (El Houssi) to a repressive attitude towards those critical, dissident voices that sought, or were perceived to have sought, to undermine its legitimacy (Moreau, Gorman, Monciaud) or ultimately be coopted by it (Ezzerelli). Its practitioners have been variously fined, imprisoned, deported and rewarded for their efforts. Language serves as a fundamental element of political and cultural representation. Collectively the volume engages with a number of press languages, including those of the majority population of the region (even if underrepresented among the literate public), namely Ottoman Turkish and Arabic, as well as Greek, Italian, English and French, which were published by local resident communities or operated as a function of imperial influence. In some contexts Ottoman Turkish (Karagöz-Kızılca) and Arabic (Booth, Kabha) was the language of emerging national publics in response to colonial interests and foreign pressures. The ways in which different languages were employed suggest a much greater complexity of politics and culture than a simple indigenous– foreign dichotomy. Italian, French and Greek could be the language of anti-state, anti-capitalist internationalist discourse (Gorman), English the language of local nationalism (Lawson), Italian of politically opposed interests (El Houssi); Arabic a language of labour affirmation (Monciaud), of community and diaspora (Slim), community and nation (Bashkin), or of political compromise (Ezzerelli).

Never wholly separate from political currents, social attitudes or cultural values, the emergence of the professional journalist represented a process of maturation that brought influence, social status and a relative autonomy to its best practitioners. In the studies presented diverse profiles of newspaper men are featured, from the committed activists of the earlier period – the commentariat of the Young Ottomans (Karagöz-Kızılca) – to political agents (Moreau), dissident labour militants (Gorman, Monciaud) and aspiring public intellectuals (Ezzerelli). In time and with greater specialisation, journalism came to recruit from a broader spectrum from middle-class men of letters (Bashkin) to political and economic commentators (Lawson, Slim) and journalistic dynasties (Kabha) who became more securely established as members of a recognised profession, or more specialised, as feature writers, reporters, cartoonists with their work regarded increasingly as a familiar literary genre (Temimi).
Oct 16, 2016 Lebanon
Mandy Turner By :
Mandy Turner

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.